


Overture to a Picaresque Tragedy

by Proud_Fanboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season 12 Beginning, But Billie totally teases Cas about his boyfriend, Gen, I'm worse than the actual show, Post-Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, Subtly though, Supernatural 11x23 Alpha and Omega: Coda, There's no Destiel in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:12:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8161735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proud_Fanboy/pseuds/Proud_Fanboy
Summary: We saw an angel get banished, we heard a shot...
-- Supernatural 11x23 Alpha and Omega: Coda --





	1. The Art Teacher

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this some time ago. Initially I wanted to make a whole fic around this Cas & Billie scene that was stuck in my head. But that's a lot of work (you real fic writers -- you should get paid for doing this shit, get insurance and free health care, 'cause it's hard labour!). Also, the sneak peeks soon started, and I settled for a little coda. Hope you guys enjoy it. And bear with me, the Cas scene is somewhere in here!
> 
> P. S. As always, I owe my gratitude to the wonderful @grey2510, who's helped me make this mess of incorrect verb forms and monstrous constructions presentable. So, let's hear a big applause for my great editor and fellow writer (a much better one than me, I'm in obligation to add -- if you haven't yet, go check out her fics, but only if you are prepared to dedicate the next few weeks of your life to the sole purpose of reading her incredible fics; seriously, once you start one, you can't stop until the credits roll)!

“Siobhan, what did we say about finger painting?”

“The paper, not the walls,” the freckled girl answers, lowering her eyes.

“And Daisy, stop that, this instant.”

She doesn’t raise her voice. If there is any threat behind her words it doesn’t come in the form of yelling. Her strict posture, her serious face with sharp cheek bones, her tight bun that keeps her red hair in check – all of which emanates a certain gravitas that even a half a dozen of preschoolers can perceive. They still don’t know what it is, but they feel it and they respect it.

“But he started it, Ms. Watt!” the other girl replies – the one that has a blond boy pressed against the floor.

“Did not!” cries the boy,  struggling to get free, his fingers all green.

“Did too!”

“Daisy, Marc, enough!”

“Yes, Ms. Watt,” comes from both of them, as they get up and walk to their respective desks. The next hour and fifteen minutes of teaching a grade of preschoolers passes in finger-painting, and by the time the class is over, there is paint and glitter (“We don’t really need glitter for finger-painting, Sarah”) on all the desks and chairs, some of it on floor, and there are two distinct small red palm prints on the wall near the classroom door.

“Let me guess – finger-painting?”

The speaker is a man with dark hair, hazel eyes, and a smile up to his ears.

“Oh, hi, Nick, Yes, the glory that is teaching preschoolers,” she says, turning to face the younger teacher, but still gathering papers from the desks.

“Trust me, you’re lucky if your biggest problem is a bunch of six-year-olds that don’t know where the paint goes. Just wait till they hit puberty; let me see you try to explain to them the significance of medieval culture!”

“Yes, darling, you’re a real martyr. Hm, please, you’re barely out of puberty yourself!” she answers mockingly, but her lips curl into a smile.

“Why, Ms. Watt, I resent that!” comes the reply, as Nick fakes being insulted. Now smiling again, he adds, “You wanna go for a drink later?”

“Didn’t you have plans with, _what’s-his-name_ , David?”

“Derek. Yeah, he cancelled; something office related.” The man’s cheerful mood slowly dissipates.

“Well, his lost, darling.”

“Yeah, I’m a real catch.”

“I didn’t have anything planned, so why not. I’ll text you when I get home, is that OK?”

“Sure. See you later!”

“See you. Bye, Nick.”

After the short exchange with her work friend (not that she really has any other kind), she gets ready to go home, when on the way to her car the phone in her purse buzzes. An e-mail. As soon as she sees the sender’s address and the subject all traces of a kind smile disappear from her face. Completely expressionless, she types a short answer and presses “send”. She won’t be going out for that drink after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points, reader, if you know to whose song I allude in the chapter title. ;)


	2. Toni’s Got a Gun

“You and I both know you’re not gonna pull the trigger.”

A loud noise. A body falling backwards, simultaneously as the dropping of an empty bullet case on the floor resonates in the grand hall of the Bunker.

“You shot me!”

“I said stop. This is really on you. We could’ve done this the easy way. Be grateful that I’m a good shot and that I decided you are still in need of your knee-caps.”

She’s doing well hiding her own surprise and keeping calm; she can’t let him see her panic. But firing a gun in a shooting range and actually shooting someone are two different things. A rush of adrenaline, blood making her cheeks warm, a quiver that starts at the bottom of her back, something stuck in her throat. Yet, she was trained for this, so she manages to keep her head in a situation like this. But that’s far from easy.

“I have an assignment , and that is to bring you in. After this, I think it’s in your best interest to come peacefully. I wouldn’t like to have to pacify you further. Can you walk?”

“Well, Your Highness, you shot me in the leg, what do you think?!”

She takes a deep breath, evaluating the situation.

“Great plan there. I’d like to see you dragging me out of here. Alone. And in those heels!”

“And who said I came alone?”

That makes the younger Winchester pause. He clearly hadn’t taken into consideration there’s anyone else with them in the Bunker.

Still pointing the gun at him, she pulls her phone out of her pocket with her free hand. “I’d ask you not to try anything stupid, but from what I know about you and what I’ve seen, I suspect you would take that as a challenge.”

“Lady, you know nothing about me!”

The hunter is clearly in pain, but he still manages to press his leg and to try to get up, if only to spite her. As she uses her phone, she aims her gun to his shoulder.

“Don’t get up, you know I’m serious!”

He sits down again. A click on the other end of the line and a female voice answers with a simple, “Yes.”

“I need you in the Bunker. Immediately.” End of the call. She puts the phone back in her pocket.

“So, your goons will drag me out?”

“I highly doubt Ms. Watt is what you’d call a goon.” A sound of the Bunker doors opening. “Ah, you’ll see for yourself”.

“Lady Antonia,” the woman with dark red hair greets her. Unlike Toni, she’s dressed more appropriately for field work: black turtleneck, black pants, a rain coat, also black. And footwear that seems far more comfortable for this kind of mission.

“Ms. Watt, as you can see, Mr. Winchester and I had a difference of opinion that resulted in him needing some help walking out of the Bunker. Would you be so kind as to help him?”

“Yes, Milady.” Miss Watt takes handcuffs out of her coat and proceeds to come closer to the man. “Don’t try anything.”

If they were standing, Ms. Watt would probably be a head shorter than him. But when they are like this, him on the floor and her looming over him, her stature clearly makes her the dominant figure in this exchange. Maybe it is thanks to this that she manages to tie him up without any further resistance on his part.

“We’ll have to stop the bleeding, Milady. When we get to the car I’ll see to that.”

“Good. You’ll do that. Thank you, Ms. Watt.”

As Ms. Watt helps Sam Winchester to get on his feet and limp out of the Bunker, by pushing him up the stairs, Lady Toni Bevell takes one last look of the Bunker before leaving.

“Hunters…”

Taking her key, she starts climbing the stairs, already thinking about her imminent debrief. She banished the angel, Cassiel; Dean Winchester is dead, which clearly isn’t her fault; she’s bringing Sam as planned, albeit with a gunshot wound – again, not really her fault. And the injury isn’t a serious one. So, all in all, this can be counted as a mission fairly accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I just have to say (but, not that I have ways to prove it) I came up with the knee wound BEFORE those first promos! (Yay, I got kripked!)
> 
> Also, bonus points, reader, if you know to whose song I allude in the chapter title. ;)


	3. Hit Me With Your Best Shot

He takes pride in being a good judge of character. When you’re a hunter, you really don’t have the luxury not to be one. He can read people: he observes their body language, he reads between the lines, he listens to what they say, and he can assume with a lot of accuracy what their moves will be. This woman, everything she has said, her posture – heck, even her clothes and shoes – everything about her screams to him “not the one to pull that trigger”.

Yeah, he’s always been a good judge of character. Or, at least, ya know, when the world wasn’t about to end just a few hours ago, when his brother isn’t dead and forever trapped in the Empty, when his best friend (and really the only one he has left – in fact, the only family he has left) hasn’t been banished to God knows where (not that God – if alive – would really care).

So, as – apparently, “Ms. Watt” – is dragging him out of the Bunker, he can’t really decide what hurts more – the gunshot or the wound to his pride. Then a dark thought goes through his head: did he actually wanted to get shot? Memories of what happened years ago, in those six months after the Mystery Spot, after Dean… He’d been reckless back then. What’s wrong with him? He can’t get himself killed. Dean’s gone. But his brother wouldn’t want him to commit suicide by proxy.

No. He just can’t think like that. And there is still Cas. He suspects that back at the cemetery, Dean made Cas promise to keep his Sammy safe. Always the big brother, Dean. That’s why Cas was trying to make him talk, on the way back to the Bunker. Not that Cas wouldn’t do it on his own. The two of them have come a long way, they are friends. And his friend just lost Dean, too. He’s banished, alone, possibly hurt. And knowing the damn idiot, Cas will get himself in trouble trying to save him.

What does Cas know? He clearly saw the intruder, the sigil. He doesn’t know, though, that she’s with the Men of Letters. If he comes back to the Bunker he’ll see the blood. And…

“Hey!”

Pain intensifies. OK, maybe the gunshot wound hurts more. He yells as Ms. Watt ties his leg above his knee to stop the bleeding. No answer from the woman. Big surprise there. She seems all “Yes, Milady,” “As you wish, Milady”. Not the chatty type. Strict, almost military discipline (and doesn’t he know that type well).

_Her Ladyship_ comes out of the Bunker.

“Is he good to go, Ms. Watt?”

“Yes.” Again, a short answer, that sign of subordination.

“Then get him in the back and we’ll be on our way. Dr. Marion awaits us. Thank you, Ms. Watt.”

British, with their “How do you do”, “Yes, please”, “Thank you, Ma’am”. The trunk, though, is certainly American. That is, the plates on the car are. A beige SUV, a  monstrosity. He wonders what Dean would…what Dean _would’ve_ had to say about the car. He would’ve probably made a bigger fuss about the car than the fact he’d been tied and put in the trunk.

As Ms. Watt is getting ready to gag him, he thinks of some snarky remark, but decides against it. He really doesn’t want to find out what this woman is ready to do to him. Yes, he’s always been a good judge of character. That’s the last thing that goes through his head before a blunt pain starts spreading from the back of his head and he starts slipping out of consciousness. He’s also a good judge on guns. Too good of a judge with too much experience in getting hit on the head with one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, you know the drill -- bonus points if you know whose song I reference in the chapter title! ;)


	4. Angel of the Morning

It's akin to waking up. Only not quite so. That moment of numbness right as consciousness starts dawning on you is less intense than this. It’s gradual. Even if you are awakened abruptly, it’s still a natural process running its course.

No, this doesn’t feel normal or natural. This was not how waking up had felt. Not even when sleeping out in the cold, when he wasn’t really sure whether the night before he fell asleep or simply unconscious because of exhaustion, hunger and pain. Even then, in that moment as he was becoming aware of himself and the world around him, everything felt somehow serene and peaceful. Though in the next few seconds he’d always realize there was no peace for him, no serenity. He was hunted. He was running. But before all that would start again, before he would spend yet another day alone and scared, those short few moments, before realization was to hit him, that was the only time he felt safe.

Now there’s not even a speck of serenity from that past, human life. No peace for Castiel. This isn’t waking up. He knows right away all that transpired, what was that brought him here. Wherever _here_ is. Being banished – the few times he was banished before this – is like being torn apart. Not only in the material sense. What happens on subatomic level to his body –

(“his body”, how completely natural it feels thinking of it as _his_ body; when did it stop being just a vessel, an organized myriad of molecules to which his grace can connect in order to be confined to this plane of existence?)

–  cannot be compared to what happens to his grace, to the essence of his being. The pulling of his grace he felt after that woman completed the sigil with her own blood is something entirely different: it’s violent and it’s something he’d assume nothingness would feel like, if nothingness could be felt. Those times he died, with his grace or without – when the reaper possessing that poor, compassionate woman drove his own blade into his heart – it was fading actually. Sharpness. Light. Pain. At last, pain slowly dissipating, and with it his thoughts, decisions, plans, memories; all that makes him what he is. All that he _is_ – what is soon to become what he _was_ – gently sipping into a state of non-being. Simply fading until there is nothing of him left. A whole different kind of peace.

There is nothing peaceful about how Castiel felt being banished. Every time. This time. He felt it, from the first blast of light that took him out of the Bunker – away from Sam and the dangerous woman – to this very moment. Not conscious but still feeling. Maybe a memory of something he never lived through. Not a recollection of what was happening, but a distinct feeling that began before he actually felt it, independently of him.

Recovering from that transcendental and phantom feeling is the hardest thing in being banished. Molecules and atoms work according to the laws of nature, according to his Father’s design. After the blast, all of those atoms, scattering. Information traveling in an instant. Then atoms gathering anew. His body, whole again. But the unsettling feeling clings to his grace. A feeling of faux non-existence. What he knows right now doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter that simply by virtue of knowing he, in fact, IS. Feeling trumps knowing. If the last time he was banished is anything to go by, that feeling will stay with him for days. Weak enough not to make functioning impossible, strong enough to make him uncomfortable all the time.

“Come on, up and at ’em; I don’t have all the time in the world…”

A woman’s voice. Melodic, even in intonation, no ups and downs, no frequencies but one.

“Well, I do, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

A hint of smile in the voice, the way self-congratulation fills a human’s voice after a joke. Something he learned to perceive when people talk. Something he learned to feel in Dean’s voice. Even in those last moments, before the hunter would go into his own death. Before Dean would make him promise he’d take care of Sam. Sam… Hm, he made good on that promise! By now that woman could’ve… No, there is no time for thinking of _what if_ -s. It’s time for planning, and acting accordingly. He can’t help Sam – and Sam needs his help – if he gets attacked again. So he turns to the woman’s voice, grabbing his hidden blade tightly.

“Easy there, angel boy. No need to bring a knife into a fight of no sorts.”

“Billie,” he decides as he turns, still half-lying on the ground, supporting his body on his elbow.

“No fight, here to help,” she adds, raising her arms in mock surrender.

At last, Castiel has the opportunity to contemplate on his surroundings – his senses were obviously absorbing stimuli from the moment he got here. A smell of not so fresh grass with the tiniest hint of salty sea air (something a human couldn’t detect), soft ground under him, a gentle warm breeze, a field with a few scattered oak trees between tiny hills in twilight. They paint a picture for him – a landscape certainly not barren, but dormant in the moments before the dawn.

As he comes out from a trance of sorts, in which the pastoral idyll almost overtakes him, he locks eyes with Billie and squints.

“And why would you?! Help, that is? You keep repeating you don’t care.”

“For you, objectively, I don’t. But all that saving the Universe thing was sort of in my best interest. No job for me if there isn’t anything to reap. More importantly, no me in all-consuming and all-containing Nothingness. Besides, that’s no way to go out. If I’m to go, I’ll go with a bang!”

“You’ve got your _bang_. Dean obviously succeeded. And…” He can’t go on, even if he is trying to convince himself it’s not the time. There is a time for mourning and a time for fighting. But still, it really doesn’t seem to him like he could do any fighting now – if the reaper were to fight him. “… So, how come you still want to help?”

“Well, call it my gratitude for saving the entire Creation. That is, gratitude I’m happy to extend if you get over yourself and your misplaced mourning of that insufferable Winchester boy and come with me.”

“My mourning isn’t misplaced.” He hisses that last word at her, feeling how her remark cuts deep. “And that _boy_ did what none of us could and none would have the courage to do. His sacrifice is what saved us all and if you are so eager to extend any gratitude, it should go to him. Not that it would do him any good, since I’m sure you made it your job to deliver his soul to the Empty. So, no, I don’t need any help from you!”

And with that he staggers to his feet, refusing to give her the satisfaction of helping him up.

“No good deed goes unpunished, I see. Lord, how did I ever get myself into this daytime soap opera?!” she smirks at him, adding, “You know, I really don’t need all this.”

“And I’m in no need of your help! As you can see, I can manage on my own.”

“Would you just shut up for a moment, Mister _I’m-managing-on-my-own_? Look at yourself. And do you even know where you are?”

If she were human, she’d lose her temper, he suspects. Her voice is now of different intonation, but no one could detect the absence of tact in her words. She is still perfectly calm and her words aren’t emanating rage but are merely colored with challenging irony. Not like his voice, not like his words that have left him almost panting, after spitting his tirade at her in one breath, a moment ago.

“As for your misplaced mourning, it’s misplaced only because your knight in shining armor isn’t in need of mourning, since he’s not dead.”

Still enraged and not fully registering what she’s said, Castiel musters an answer. “I still don’t, where exactly, but, I mean…”

Then suddenly something clicks. “Wait, did you say…? He’s…? But the bomb, and Chuck disappearing…?!”

“Nope, no bomb. Trust me, I’d know if that kind of power was released. All those souls, I’d feel that. There was no explosion. The souls were just… sent away. And no soul of his for me to collect! His soul is still in his body, which is probably heading to the Bunker as we speak”

“But how is that possible? How did he then stop Amara?! What happened?”

“You ought to save some questions for the big reunion. You know, a lot of hugs, a lot of tears, a lot of ‘How?’, ‘Why?’, ‘Where?’ and all that. So, are you coming?” she asks as she offers her hand to him.

“Where?” It’s all that he can manage, still in disbelief, waiting for relief and happiness to overshadow all his worries.

“I don’t think it’s really smart to leave Dean…”

– a short pause, as she decides the topic of Dean Winchester’s current companion is yet another she really has no interest in discussing right now –

“…to come back to an empty bunker, with his brother and his angel nowhere to be found, and a bloody sigil on the wall. It seems Winchesters are predisposed to make some really stupid decisions in situations like that, don’t you agree...?”

“An empty bunker? Does that mean Sam was taken by that woman?”

“Yes, he was. So…?”

Taking her on her offer and by her hand, he just asks, almost disinterested, “And where are we exactly?”

“Outside Alburquerque, Extremadura.”

“Spain?”

“I hear they have this wonderful ham around here; used to be illegal in the States. Too bad we’re in a hurry.”

He has already stopped listening to her and as he feels the force of her powers pulling at his grace, he starts wondering how is he going to explain to Dean that he left Sam be taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have guessed by now what I'm going to ask you, right?
> 
> "The chapter title is a reference to the song performed by ______________." ;D


End file.
